ClaudeF wrote:

At what point does the mainstream public and press view the delayed "20th anniversary" UYI box as a joke?

If it isn't announced in the next month or so as a potential Christmas buying season item, they will have to push it back to 2023.

22nd anniversary? Not exactly a milestone ...

One of the problems with a UYI set is that it doesn't even generate much hardcore fan interest/buzz for a number of reasons....

While the contents of the AFD set were ok, they pissed people off with the ridiculous price.

The off year anniversaries are amateur hour and don't inspire any confidence.

The GNR camp refuse to give any info about it. Pink Floyd... people known for their dysfunction and hatred of one another.... actually give updates on their upcoming Animals set....but an actual band is incapable of communication?!?

If the UYI set lacks video, it's going to piss fans off even more than the lack of AFD video did. They bragged for years about the mountains of video footage of the tour...to then not release any for its anniversary would be a slap in the face.

We live in a world where people expect a certain level of bang for their buck when it comes to purchasing deluxe editions and box sets. While some artists can get away with offering minimal content, it's not going to work here.

It's time to celebrate and wrap up the era with the definitive set. They get one crack at this. Give it the justice it deserves.

As we've talked about a bit over the years, the passage of time has done UYI no favors. They have dropped out of the major media outlets "Best song/album/videos of the 1990s" lists in articles and TV shows over the past decade or so. A lot of hardcore fans no longer listen to them. Within a decade or so, it'll probably be looked back on as famous for one song(November Rain).... maybe two(YCBM).

The crazy hype and infamous tour are slipping through the cracks of time. A killer set might save it...or a bad one quicken its downfall.

Edit

Here's how Pink Floyd handled the Animals 5.1 remix set coming out in a couple weeks...

They gave us Dogs...which is incredible.

Amazing they even gave us that because the song is essentially half the album.

And a couple vids to wet our appetite....

Only complaint there is it's too short.

Looks like they got rid of that short with the dog barking.

We're probably lucky to have gotten this one. As you can see, the remix was finished in 2018.

It was played live at least once in 1986 (The Whiskey, August 23). So it already had lyrics then, although they didn't record a demo of it with vocals (or, at least, no demo with vocals from that time has been released or circulated).

Then it was indeed going to be on UYI. A rough mix of it with vocals is found on the "Axl's Advance Copy" bootleg from the 90s (the dates of the mixes on that bootleg are unknown). That version was obviously with Izzy.

It was included in a letter from ASCAP to radio/TV stations in April 1991 (prohibiting the broadcast of leaked tracks from UYI sessions):

http://www.troccolitm.com/UYIPressKit5.JPG

According to Matt Sorum, part of it was recorded in Wisconsin at the time the UYI tour started:

Matt: I do actually, I do remember [The Alpine Valley shows in May 1991].  [...] When we played Alpine Valley we hadn’t released the “Illusions” records yet and we actually finished a couple of the songs on the album over there in Wisconsin, there was a recording studio (Royal Recorders, Lake Geneva) and I remember me and Duff had to go in there and do background vocals and I think Axl had to sing a lead vocal. We did a song called “Don’t Damn Me” and another song called “Ain’t Goin Down” which is actually only on the Guns N’ Roses pinball machine so I remember all that stuff yeah (laughs). [Legendary Rock Interviews, March 17, 2014]

Then Slash said in 1992 that they were thinking of putting it on what would become The Spaghetti Incident, mentioning that the lyrics and vocals weren't finished:

Slash: As far as the Punk thing goes, there’s gonna be a new song on there that we didn’t finish for ‘Use Your Illusion’. It’s finished as far as all the backing tracks were done, but we didn’t finish the words. It’s called ‘Ain’t Going Down’ and it’s one of those songs that we wrote in the streets in Hollywood just walking around. [Raw Magazine, March 4, 1992]

I don't recall Gilby talking about playing on it, and maybe he did play on it when they were recording songs for Spaghetti while on tour. The above quote from Slash, though, doesn't suggest that they intended to have Gilby play on it.

And then it ended up being used for the pinball machine. Slash again mentioned that the vocals were not finished:

Slash: There’s a song called Ain’t Going Down, which we just never finished, and we have a chorus for it, so I figure we’d use that [on the pinball machine], you know, and finally get it out there. So now that we’ve done it we have to actually record it. [MTV, November 11, 1994]

Gilby was out of the band when the pinball machine was released (and a year later he sued GN'R for using his name and likeness on it).

The version we have from the UYI sessions sounds like a completed song, but maybe Axl wanted to write more lyrics on it.